North Shore Reads: The pleasures & perils of travel

As the world returns to travel, Steve Burgess asks: Is satisfying our own wanderlust worth the trouble it causes everyone else? Or is the tourist guilty of the charges — from voyeurism to desecration — leveled against them by everyone from environmentalists to exhausted locals to superior-feeling fellow tourists who have traded in the tour bus for “authentic experiences”?

Here in BC, the tourism sector generates billions of dollars in revenue and is one of the province’s largest employers. The North Shore in particular has many can’t-miss spots for visitors, but two locations — Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Suspension Bridge — recently ranked among the world’s most overpriced tourist traps.

For the fourth North Shore Reads event, we invite you to a timely and dynamic conversation between Burgess and The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman on the real price of our holidays, covered in Burgess’s new book Reservations: The Pleasures & Perils of Travel.

This event is a collaboration between the North Vancouver City Library, North Vancouver District Library, and West Vancouver Memorial Library. Previous North Shore Reads authors include Suzanne Simard, Ivan Coyote, and Brett Popplewell. 

About the presenters:

Steve Burgess is a Vancouver writer and broadcaster. He is the author of Reservations: The Pleasures and Perils of Travel (Douglas & McIntyre) and Who Killed Mom? (Greystone Books). He is a two-time Canadian National Magazine Award winner and winner of the 2022 Jack Webster Community Mic Award as Commentator of the Year for his work with The Tyee.ca. He is the former host of @the end on CBC Television and has been an occasional CBC Radio guest host.

Marsha Lederman is an award-winning journalist and author. A staff columnist with The Globe and Mail, she was previously The Globe’s Western Arts Correspondent. Her memoir Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2022. Born and raised in Toronto, Marsha now lives in Vancouver.

Questions? Please contact info@nvcl.ca or 604-998-3450. 

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